The Independent War
by RabidRabbitFoot
Summary: Pre and post first movie X-men fic.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Angela Carols stuck her apartment key into the knob of the door it belonged to and, with a slight jiggle, she let herself in. Carrying several bags of groceries in her left arm she pulled the key out, slipped it into her purse, and closed the door behind her. To her immediate left was a small kitchenette that was separated from the dark and small living room only by a counter that had a bar on one side. She placed her groceries down and walked back to the door to lock it. Once secure she pulled off her fitted tan trench coat and hung it in the closet beside the door she came through. As she hung the wire hanger back on the bar she was startled to find that she was not alone. "Do you really want to know?" a female voice dead panned.

Angela hesitated in closing the coat closet for only a moment. When she finally did close it she used the hair band on her wrist and pulled her mid-back length honey hair into a ponytail. "Of course I want to know," she said as she flicked on a light in the kitchen and began to unload her food, milk and eggs first. The room was silent as she did so but, once the perishables were put away, Angela eventually reached over and flicked on the light switch for the living room. Once the small room was illuminated she looked around curiously. "I've been doing work, on your behalf."

"I know."

"A little bit of awareness can go a long way. Nobody has any reason to fear you," she continued as she walked into the middle of the room and stood on the rug that separated her loveseat from her television.

"You would think," the voice said from directly behind Angela. It caused her back to tense and her body to become very aware of every vertebrate in her spine, "that by now you would know looking around will do you know good."

Angela turned around and stared intensely at the empty space right in front of herself, "Force of habit, I suppose. Not too many people I know…" she bit her lower lip and brushed past the person she attempted to stare. She felt the other woman's body graze hers but still saw nothing. Back in her kitchen she grabbed two mugs and filled up a metal kettle before she placed it on the stove, "So are you going to tell me or not, Emily?" she asked as she turned around and saw that Emily was now there.

"Well, I suppose so. I didn't drive two hours just to come say hello," Emily said as she ran a hand through her shoulder length brown hair. She walked over to the mugs on the kitchen counter and grabbed one by the bottom. With little effort Emily's hand disappeared along with the blue mug she was holding. Angela stared at the ivory colored knob of skin halfway down Emily's forearm where the divide between visible and invisible laid. Emily peered up at her and Angela glanced into her eyes before she looked back down at where the mug was. Carefully she took her right hand and gingerly felt for the porcelain handle. When she had it she pulled the mug out of Emily's hand and in an instant it reappeared in her own. As she stared at the mug Emily continued, "Unless you just want me to say hello and then leave, because I can easily arrange that."

Angela snapped out of her train of thought and quickly placed the mug on the counter next to its brother. "If you're going to just tease me all night then you can leave," she walked over to the sink and placed her hands on the edge to lean in and stare at Emily who now sat in front of her at the bar, "I'm sure you can manage parting without being seen."

Angela watched as Emily sighed and studied her carefully. She was nervous but she refused to let it show. After long minute of silence Emily leaned back in her bar tool and cracked a very small smile. "I suppose the story isn't going to get any shorter the longer I sit here," Angela relaxed and stepped away from the sink. She walked around the bar and into the living room to get comfortable as Emily spun on her stool to follow her every move. Once Angela was seated in a lounge chair by the love seat she crossed her legs and leaned back to mimic Emily. "But first, you need to make a promise."

"What kind of promise?"

"A promise that this story never leaves this room," Angela got ready to interject but Emily held up a hand and silenced her, "I don't care if it may help your cause and I don't care if your cause is meant to help me and the others. The moment some money mogul hears what I have to say they'll want to turn it into some bestselling book or Oscar winning movie. Not because they care about what you're trying to do but because they want to be a part of Oprah's book club. Are we clear?"

Angela bit her lower lip again and nodded, "We're clear."

"Say you promise."

"I promise."

"You promise what?"

Angela dropped her shoulders and rolled her eyes, "I promise not to tell anybody what you're about to tell me. Even if it could help you and the others."

Angela watched as Emily slowly nodded and got off of her stool, "Good. Except for that last part, but I'll let that slide," she walked over to the love seat and threw herself down casually in a way that was more becoming of a teenager rather than a woman in her early twenties. "I guess I should begin where it nearly ended. I was at the city courthouse and only sixteen when it happened. It was the first time I ever did it, but it nearly became my last."


	2. Chapter One: First Snow

**Chapter One – First Snow**

"What do you mean $185?" Emily yelled. It was enough to get the security guards standing nearby to scowl at her. She glared at them but quickly took a deep breath and returned her attention to the courthouse clerk sitting behind the bullet proof glass. Emily leaned in on her chair and placed both hands palms down on the counter in front of her. "$185? I was only speeding!" she whispered.

The clerk sighed and pouted slightly at Emily as he adjusted his body so that he sat lopsided. "You were going twenty-two miles over the speed limit according to the officer who issued the ticket."

Emily glanced to the side as her mouth hung slightly open. "Yeah," she said stretched out, "Well I was on the highway and I was trying to keep up with traffic."

"Your citation has a note on it saying there were no other cars around," the clerk said straight-faced.

"Exactly my point! The other cars were leaving me behind to eat their dust. If I was stupid I would've gone even faster to try and catch up but I'm not an idiot."

"Uh-huh."

Emily's shoulders dropped and her blue eyes narrowed in on the clerk. "Who do I make the check out to?" the clerk tapped on the glass just above a plaque that stated all checks were supposed to be made out to New York Municipal Court. Emily swiped the chunks of shoulder length auburn hair out of her face and wrote the check. Then, with enough force to rip the legal tender in half if it weren't perforated at the top, Emily tore the check out and slid it to the clerk through the small hole at the bottom of the glass. "How many points?"

The clerk initialed the check, stamped the back, and circled the address before he looked at his computer monitor, "Four."

"Four?!" Emily held a hand up to the security guards who shifted in their stance and glared at the clerk as her upper lip curled. "You really know how to rob a girl, don't you?" she said as she shoved her pen and driver's license and pen into her purse, "Not how I imagined breaking this in," she said as she waved her check book before throwing that in too, "but I suppose there's nothing I could've done about that."

"Well," the clerk said to her as she stood up, "you could've just not sped."

Emily looked fiercely at the clerk but said nothing in retaliation. She just turned around and began to walk towards the exit. Just as she got past the revolving door and into the security check point area a man in a thick, long, black trench coat walked through the metal detector. It sounded an alarm that pierced the air and Emily stopped dead in her feet. She looked the man straight in the eyes with a furrowed brow. Her look of disapproval quickly melted away when she saw the man sneer, as a guard with a metal detector wand walked over to him, and pull out a gun. Emily screamed fiercely while the mad man began shooting at anything that moved. She ducked back into the revolving door but the glass in it was not bullet proof like the one at the clerk's desk. As she cowered on her lower back the glass shattered and fell around her like slicing snow. Emily flinched when another bullet went off. It felt like an eternity between when she heard the gun go off and when her shoulder was thrown into nausea inducing pain. She threw her right hand up to cover her left shoulder but before she could even think another thought another bullet rang through the air and suddenly the left side of her neck was in horrible pain too. To top that off her whole body began to tingle like she was on pins and needles. She screamed, somehow managed to get onto all fours, and hastily crawled out of the door. When she was out she stood up quickly and the blood rush made her light headed. She swayed where she stood for a moment and watched as the guards brought the mad man down. Then, without any more hesitation, she let go of her shoulder and shoved the main door open. Once out on the street she grabbed her neck wound and screamed, "Help! Please, God, somebody help!" Tears started to drip down her cheeks and chin in a fiery path that only reminded her of how cold it was outside. Two guards from inside the building ran out and looked around frantically. When Emily saw them she yelled half-heartedly, "Please," as her voice quivered and her stance shook.

"Where is she?" one of the guards snapped.

"I don't know, but I can hear her. Spread out."

"I'm right here…" Emily whined as she leaned against the courthouse on her right shoulder. The guards didn't hear her soft tone. Instead they both ran to the benches a few yards away and left Emily where she barely stood. Emily cried and turned her head towards the window. She looked into the courthouse's security check point and watched as the man was being arrested and dragged off. Slowly her legs gave way and she slid down the side of the building when she began to focus on something else. The window and its reflection showed the busy street behind Emily and the building across from it but it did not show Emily herself. She gasped and shakily got to her feet. Emily held out her right, blood covered hand and could see it clear as day but when she looked back into the reflection the window was giving she saw nothing. At a loss for words and with fresh boost of adrenaline pumped into her system she turned around and ran away from the courthouse. "Oh God oh God…" she hastily ranted at herself, "oh God I'm dead." Emily looked around frantically and begged herself to scream at the top of her lungs but she just couldn't find the strength. Instead she stumbled down an alley to her left and off the snowplowed sidewalk.

The snow, first of the season, was only two inches deep but it was enough to slow Emily down. She dragged her feet and bumped into several large trash bins before she spotted a snow drift a few feet away. Emily managed to straighten herself out long enough to head to the opposing side of the alley. She collapsed onto her knees a few feet away and shuffled herself the rest of the way over. When she got there she lackadaisically threw herself into the snow pile and landed on her back, propped up only by the wall behind her. She closed her eyes and took several shallow breaths. Eventually she opened her eyes, pulled her hand away from her neck, and looked down at the mess. The front of her was covered in blood from her wounds though a majority of it was from the shoulder. She tried to lift her left hand to hold it to her neck so that her other hand could put pressure on her shoulder but even the slightest movement of her arm pained her. Emily let her head lightly hit the wall behind her and she tilted her head to look at where she had just come from. There, in the snow, were her shuffled foot tracks with an occasional blot of two of blood. Emily tried to put her pale right hand onto her left shoulder but she could only manage to get it to her breast. The pain in her neck and shoulder was now down to a barely noticeable throb but the tingling feeling was still there just as much as it had been when she first got shot. Emily sobbed silently as closed her eyes once more and prepared for death.

It felt like an eternity before she heard anything again but sure enough, right when she was sure that it was the end, she heard several voices. "These are the coordinates the professor gave." Emily opened her eyes and lazily rolled her head to her left. At the mouth of the alley she saw a woman with fierce white hair standing next to man with brown hair and ruby glasses.

The brown haired man looked down the alley, "Look," he pointed to the foot prints and the two immediately began to come towards Emily. Emily blinked slowly and opened her mouth to say something but found no strength to do so. All she could do was hope that they would find their way over to her.

Slowly the two got closer to Emily and she fell back into the snow bank next to the trash bin more. Eventually the man and woman followed the footprints and stood right before her. Emily clenched her eyes shut and held her breath. "I don't, wait," the man grumbled as Emily heard his steps get closer, "the snow's bloody here." Emily stayed frozen as she listened to the man next to her kneel down. She wanted so bad to be visible again so that somebody could see her and help her but she could not make herself reappear. There was a moment of absolute silence as Emily waited for something to happen, whether it was her death or her discovery.

Suddenly there was a hand on her good shoulder and all the muscles in her body seemed to release. Her limbs went limp like tender noodles, her head thunked against the trash bin and she opened her eyes. The hand on her shoulder grabbed her tighter and she saw the man turn around just as the tingling feeling finally ended. "I got her!" When he turned back he flinched slightly and the white haired woman came to a stop right behind him.

The woman smiled warmly but with a furrowed brow, "Hello there," she knelt down and reached out towards Emily but she never felt the woman's hands touch her.

***

Where ever Emily was it was dark. She slowly stirred and tried to move but a burning pain flared up in her neck and shoulder. Emily paused in her movement and took a breath to steady herself. Then her eyes flung open and she shot up only to be greeted with yet more pain. She cringed and threw her right arm up to her shoulder where most of the pain was. After it subsided slightly she opened her eyes again and looked around. "I'm not dead," she whispered as she felt her face to establish that yes, she was indeed alive. Her right hand wandered off her cheeks and down her neck where she felt some gauze and medical tape across the left side of her neck. She then looked down as her hand felt her shoulder. There was no bandage to be seen because of the t-shirt she was wearing but there was a dark blue sling holding her arm in place. Emily looked up and studied the room. It was small with a twin bed, two windows, one above the oak night stand and the other on the wall to her left, a dresser across the room, and a door in the far right corner. It was lit by a lamp on the night table and the evening winter glow from outside. Emily pulled the wool blankets off her legs and saw she was wearing a pair of dark blue sweatpants that nearly matched the sling. Gingerly she put her feet over the edge of the bed and let them rest on the cool wooden floor.

Then there was a knock. Emily shot out of her bed and immediately recognized a tingling feeling come over her. She backed up so that she was nearly against the wall as she watched the door slowly open and a brown haired woman in a blue shirt and brown skirt peeked her head in. "Emily?" the woman called as she stepped and surveyed the room. "Emily, I know you're still in here," Emily's eyes went wide, _I'm not going to hurt you, _she heard the woman say without moving her lips. Emily shook her head quickly and inched towards the door while the woman walked towards the bed. _You're safe here, Emily. Nobody's going to hurt you. _She reached the bed, Emily reached the door. She felt out and carefully placed a hand on the bed, Emily felt for the door knob. The woman straightened up and Emily swung the door open. She turned on her toes and dashed out the door. _And now you're gone._

Emily was confused at first. She was in a long hallway filled with closed doors and considered opening one to see if it was a way out but chose against it. She didn't want give off any signs of where she was. Emily stopped when she finally reached the end of the hall and looked back. The woman wasn't following her. Emily thought nothing of it and quickly ran down the steps that she had come to. When she got to the bottom she slid to a stop on her heels as she nearly ran into a couple of kids. They looked ordinary at first but the more Emily looked at them the more she realized they were different. The boy played with an ice ball in his hands and the girl walked through any obstruction in her way. Emily closed her eyes and shook her head before she ran off in the opposite direction. Her bare feet pattered against the rug in this new hall but she didn't care. She continued to look over her shoulders to see if anybody was following her but nobody was and, somehow, it felt like nobody was supposed to. Curious by this she slowed down and started to walk backwards as she watched for a sign of somebody. There was no way these people would let an injured person just run off. Something was off about this place but before she could think about it any longer she ran backwards into something solid but soft. Emily quickly turned around and saw the man with ruby red glasses carefully reach out. Emily backed up slowly but she was not quick enough. The man got a hold of her by her upper right arm and wouldn't let go. Emily began to struggle and pull away but a deep, kind voice spoke out, "It's okay," she froze, looked up and saw the brown haired man hadn't moved his lips, "no, it wasn't him." Emily straightened up and looked past the brown haired man who, when he felt she was no longer struggling, let go of her arm but placed his hand on her uninjured shoulder. Behind him was another, older man, coming closer in a wheelchair, "There's no need to hide, Emily, we're not going to hurt you." Emily glanced up at the man with the glasses and slowly pulled from his grip. When she was free she took a few steps back and felt the tingling feeling melt away. Then, for the first time since she saw him, the older man made eye contact with her. She couldn't tell if the man with the glasses did the same. The older man stopped next to the other, "Thank you, Scott. If you would excuse us I need to talk to Miss Hamilton."

Scott nodded, "Nice to meet you," he said before he left down the hall and disappeared around the corner.

"So, Emily," Emily looked back at the older man and eyed him carefully, "how are you feeling?"

Emily shrugged with one shoulder and mumbled quietly, "Okay."

"No pain?"

"A little."

The man nodded and pointed to a seat behind Emily. She took the hint and slowly sat down but never took her gaze off the man. "That's to be expected until you heal completely. We'll keep you on medicine for that until it's gone for the most part. I'm Professor Charles Xavier and you're at my school for others like us, a school for mutants."

"Am I?"

Professor Xavier nodded, "A mutant, yes. You're ability, if you haven't figured it out already, is the power to make yourself and whatever you're wearing invisible. I'm sure that with some practice this power will increase to new heights."

"What do you do?"

_Do you really want to know?_

Emily leaned back in her chair, "Oh, another one."

Professor Xavier laughed slightly and nodded. "So I take it you met Jean, our other resident telepath."

"Yes, she has," the brown haired woman said as she came down the staircase, "although our introduction wasn't formal. I'm Jean Grey," she came over to Emily and held out a hand. Emily just stared at it.

"Jean is the one that patched you up, Emily," Professor Xavier said, "She saved your life when you were nearly dead." Emily looked at Professor Xavier and then back at Jean before she took her hand and quickly shook it.

Jean smiled and turned to the professor, "I'm headed to dinner, will you two be joining us?"

"In a minute, yes."

"I'll save you some food then. It was nice meeting you, Emily." Jean smiled one last time before she headed down the hall in the same direction the two teenagers and Scott had earlier.

Emily looked back at the professor and furrowed her brow. "How long have I been here?"

"Four days. We were starting to fear you wouldn't wake up."

"And you're sure I'm a … a mutant?" Professor Xavier nodded. Emily frowned and sunk into her chair. Her eyes began to quickly water and before long she had begun to cry.

"What is it, Emily?"

Emily shook her head, "I can't be a mutant, not if I want to go home."

"You're parents, they're anti-mutant supporters."

Emily looked at the professor and her crying instantly stopped. "How did you know?"

"I looked into your background when you first got here. Your mother is a homemaker, your older brother is in the armed forces, and your father is the press secretary for newly elected Senator Kelly. All of them are human."

Emily shot out of her chair and began to back up, "How can you know all of that? How can you know that much about my family?" she then remembered back to the alley and her eyes quickly lit up, "You're the professor. This woman with white hair said you gave the coordinates to where I would be and her and that guy with the glasses…"

"They found you. That was Scott and Orora and they're mutants too. You're actually not far from where we found you, we're still in the state of New York."

"That's not my point!" Emily snapped, "How did you know where I was? How did you know I needed help?"

Emily waited for his answer but the professor took his time in giving it to her. "I have a machine called Cerebro," he said, "It allows me to connect with other mutants. You appeared when I was in there doing my daily survey and I realized you were in trouble. I sent Scott and Orora to get you and here you are." Emily felt her shoulders drop as she slowly sat back down in the chair. Professor Xavier came closer to her and placed a hand on her right which lay on the arm of the chair. "We can contact your family and explain these circumstances to them. They're your parents, I'm sure they'll understand."

Emily looked at the Professor's hand and then looked him in the face as she wiped away some more tears. "Did you use this machine you mentioned to look up my family as well?"

"Cerebro, yes."

"Well if you did and you're as powerful of a mutant as you play yourself to be, then you'll already know that there's no point." Emily stood up and looked out the window behind her. A fresh layer of snow was covering the old making every surface soft. "They'd rather die themselves than know I'm a…"

"There's no shame in saying it, Emily. You are what you are."

Emily sighed, "A mutant. They're probably searching local hospitals for me or any girl with gunshot wounds," Emily unconsciously put her right hand on her shoulder gingerly, "but once they can't find me they'll assume I've died. There's no way I would survive my wounds without getting medical treatment."

"Are you sure that you don't want to at least try to contact them?"

Emily shook her head and turned around, "No, it's better this way. If they were to find out they would rather me be dead. I might as well give them what they want and doing it this way will let them think that I was still the daughter they loved."

Professor Xavier came up next to Emily's right side, "Then welcome Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Now, I'm sure after being out of it for four days you're hungry." Emily was about to open her mouth and object so that she could possibly go back to her room but her stomach betrayed her with a large gurgle. She sighed and, as Professor Xavier headed towards the dining room, she followed with her head hung low.

In the dining room was Scott, Jean, Orora, and four teenage children, two of which were the ones Emily saw in the hall earlier. These two and one other seemed to be fairly young and Emily figured them to be in their early teen years. Professor Xavier went to the head of the table where a plate sat already made up for him. There was another spot open with a plate next to a red headed boy, who looked older and closer to Emily's age, on the left hand side of the table. Emily shuffled to the seat quickly and sat down. After she got situated she noticed that nobody bothered to pay her any attention. She sighed as she relaxed a little and carefully picked up her fork. Digging at the mash potatoes more than anything, she started to feel like she was being watched. Without moving her head Emily looked at the red head boy next to her, "What do you want?"

The boy shrugged and shook his head. "Nothing, just your name," he said as he shoved a forkful of steamed carrots into his mouth.

"I'm Emily," Emily said as she continued to look at the boy from the corner of her left eye.

"I'm Andrew," Andrew responded as he put his fork down and held out his hand. Emily took it after a moment and shook lightly. "Well what do you think of this place so far?"

Emily shrugged her right shoulder and stabbed a few carrots onto her fork. "It's okay, what I've seen of it."

"Yeah, I like this place. I think we all do. Have you met everybody?" Emily shook her head. "Do you want to be introduced?" Again, she shook her head. "Okay, how about I just tell you who everybody is?" Emily stopped playing with her food for a minute before she nodded. Andrew put his fork down, straightened up, wiped his mouth, and leaned back in his chair. One by one he started to point out the kids, "Okay, so that blonde boy over there is Bobby. He creates ice and freezes things and stuff like that so don't ever worry if you get a cold drink or something, he can fix it. The girl sitting next to him, that's Kitty Pryde. She can walk through things. I mean anything. I onetime dared her to walk through a solid wall of concrete and she did it, totally cool. The boy sitting next to her, that's John. We all call him Pyro because, well…" at that moment John, who intensely stared at Emily and Andrew, took a lighter and put a flaming ball of fire into his hand.

"John, not now," Orora spoke up. Andrew and Emily looked over at the white haired woman near the head of the table. After a hard glance at John, the gruff looking boy put the flame ball out.

Andrew smirked, "That's Orora but we like calling her Storm. She can control the weather. Oddly, she didn't choose a career in meteorology," Emily suppressed a small giggle as she quickly turned her attention back to the now shredded food before her. She quickly stole a glance at Andrew who smiled back at her. Emily shoved some carrots into her mouth and looked up like nothing had happened. Just when she thought Andrew was going to continue she saw him scoot closer to her and put an arm around her shoulders being extremely careful not to hurt her wounds. "Okay. Well, oh, that dude with the wicked glasses, he's Scott and he can shoot lasers out his eyes. That's why he wears those things. His code name is Cyclops. Now, I'm pretty sure he has both eyes but the last person to actually check didn't live to tell the tale so we kind of just take his word for it," another small smile escaped Emily's lips. "Then there's Jean, she can move objects without even touching them and is all telepathic like the Professor who I'm sure you've already met," Andrew let go of Emily and sat back in his chair as she smiled and nodded.

"That was very educational, Andrew, thank you."

"Anytime, Emily. The professor is actually in the process of trying to find other mutants to join us so our numbers should be growing if everything works out right. So what can you do?"

Emily stopped smiling and put some more food into her mouth. After that she took a long drink of her water and then started playing with her napkin. "It's nothing, really."

"Not true. I bet your power allows you to do some awesome stuff. Like…slow time or sneeze hurricane force winds or something."

Emily wiped her mouth on her napkin and then looked Andrew in the eyes, "I can go invisible."

Andrew straightened up in his chair and leaned in, "Serious?"

Emily nodded, "Yeah, but I'm kinda new to it so I'm not to practiced yet."

"That has to be…the coolest thing I've ever heard! So what happens? Are you just here one minute and gone the next? I bet you're super good at being sneaky and stuff. Does it feel funny? Can you still see yourself or are you, like, -really- invisible."

"It kind of tingles, actually. At least, I think it does. I've only done it twice so I'm not really sure. Both times were kind of uncontrolled too and I didn't reappear until I chilled out a little. But both times I could see myself with my naked eye, not in reflections though."

"That is so cool, I wish I could see it."

Emily shrugged and started playing with her food again, "Maybe when I get more practice. If I get more practice."

"You will, and you'll be awesome at it. But I still won't be able to see it. Well, not up close at least, maybe from a distance though."

Emily looked at Andrew, "Why not?"

"Because of my ability. I can suppress a mutant's powers. Make them like any other human."

"Really?" Emily said as she sat up and turned to face Andrew face on, "Can you do it permanently? I mean take powers away 100% so that mutants are back to being humans?"

Andrew looked down and placed a hand on Emily's right hand that rested on the table, "No, but I wouldn't if I could. Your powers, they're like a gift that was made especially for you and it would be heartbreaking if they were gone."

Emily turned to face the table again and pouted, "Heartbreaking for who?"

Andrew turned to face Emily, put a hand on her chin and made her look at him, "Hey, you don't mean that. Look, we all feel the same way when we first find out. It's scary and we would give anything to go back to our normal lives but, once you see the awesome stuff that you can accomplish, normal starts to look pretty boring," he took his hand away from her and went back to his meal. It wasn't until a minute or two had passed by that he spoke up again, "Besides, I think I was once told it's rude to regift." Emily cracked a small smile and looked back at Andrew from the corner of her eye. He winked at her and she felt the need to eat something again.

The rest of dinner went by like any other dinner. Everybody ate, talked, and acted like anybody else would. Emily watched intently and waited for somebody to use a power or something magnificent to happen but it never did. Soon thereafter dinner finished and everybody started to leave alone or in pairs until there was only Scott, Jean, Andrew and Emily. Emily now had her right elbow on the table and her head in her hand, barely propped up with her eyes half shut, "Emily?" Emily shook awake and looked up to see Jean standing over her with a hand on her back, "Perhaps you should go to bed, it's been a long day," Emily lifted her head off her palm and looked around to see she was one of the few left. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes she stood up only to stumble forward. Jean quickly caught her and Andrew rushed over. He took Emily's right arm and put it around his shoulders. Emily readily leaned into him.

"I'll take her to her room."

"You sure?" Scott asked. Andrew nodded and then left as Emily held on. She soon placed her head on his left shoulder and yawned. When they reached Emily's room she felt herself get led to her bed and laid down the instant she sat on the mattress. Andrew helped her put her feet into bed and pulled the covers up around her.

"Andrew," Emily mumbled with her eyes still closed.

"Yeah?"

"Can I tell you a secret?"

"Sure."

"I wish I was human. I wish you could cure me."

"If it would make you happy, I wish I could too. Can I tell you a secret?"

"Hmm?"

Emily felt the mattress sink where Andrew sat down and then felt his breath by her ear, "I don't believe in love at first sight but I don't think the rules apply to a girl who can vanish into thin air."


	3. Chapter Two: Apprentice

**Chapter Two – Apprentice**

Emily sat on a bench on the mansion grounds out in the fresh early spring sun. Snow was still on the ground but several patches had melted away to reveal green grass. Trees dripped as the snow had melted into water and the water slowly fell to the ground like a light, sporadic rain. Emily made sure not to sit on a bench beneath one of the giant oaks for this very reason. She had a math book open in her cross-legged lap and she occasionally moved her left shoulder in circular motions. Nobody could tell, though, because she had turned herself invisible.

As she began to look over the problems that had been assigned out she realized that the familiar tingling feeling that came with her powers had dissipated. "Still stiff?"

Emily looked up from her book and saw Andrew. She smirked, closed her text, uncrossed her legs, and slid over. "Yeah, a little. Jean said it would be that way for about a week."

Andrew sat down next to Emily close enough that their legs brushed each other. "Just exercise it and everything should work out."

Emily smiled and looked down at her book cover. "Well I'll keep that in mind, Doctor Simmons," she looked up and ran her right hand through Andrew's red hair, "Looks like somebody could go for a cut."

Andrew tried to back away from her hand and held his own out, "Yeah, maybe. Maybe you should take your own advice too," he said as he reached for Emily's brown hair that was now a few inches past her shoulders.

Emily giggled and pulled her hands away from Andrew's head to try and fight off his hands, "It's fine. Girl's are allowed to have long hair. Boys, on the other hand…" she was interrupted by a giggling fit as Andrew slid his hands off her hair and tickled her down the middle of her back. When he got to the small of her back he pulled her closer and returned a hand to the back of her neck. Emily sat there and stared into his eyes for a minute when Andrew started to lean in. Emily leaned back for a moment before she pulled back and quickly put a hand on his chest, "Andrew, I don't…"

Andrew stopped and looked Emily in the eyes. After a moment he removed his left hand from behind her neck and used it to brush the stray hairs out of her face. "Okay, Em. But I'll get you to kiss me one of these days. Mark my words."

Emily grinned at him before she slid close and leaned against his shoulder. "Would you like me to cut it short?"

"Only if it makes you happy."

"That's not what I asked."

"Would you like me to cut mine?"

"Only if you want…"

"That's not what I asked."

Emily lifted her head off her shoulder and bit her lower lip as she surveyed his hair. "It could go for a trim, just to get rid of the winter shag."

Andrew pulled Emily back in and leaned his cheek on the top of her head. "Then I'll do it this afternoon. Kitty is pretty good with a pair of scissors so I'll ask her to whack it off."

Emily smiled and played with the hem of Andrew's blue sweater before she tugged on her own yellow one. "Professor says I'm getting good with my powers."

"Yeah?"

Emily nodded, "I can turn objects that I'm holding invisible now too, though it takes a little bit more effort. Do you practice with your powers, Andrew?"

"Not really, they just kind of happen. But I practice in other ways."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if I get rid of another mutant's powers then they become a human and I, if the circumstances occur, have to fight them another way. All my power does is level the playing field, I have to come up with my own advantage."

"Really? So let me guess, you're skilled in kung fu or something?"

Emily felt Andrew straighten up and she followed suit and sat up as well. She looked into his eyes and watched as he smirked. "How about I show you?" Emily got ready to respond but before she could even open her mouth Andrew had leaped off the bench and had grabbed her by the wrist. With her in his hands he dashed towards the mansion.

"Wait! My books, I need to get them," Emily said as she looked back at the abandoned bench.

"Books can wait," Andrew said as he ran up the steps two at a time, "I promise this'll be worth it."

Emily fugitive look before she turned forward and ran with Andrew. When they got inside Andrew guided her down the usual hallways but when they got to the elevator instead of going up Andrew took Emily down. She had been in the lower parts of the mansion before. It was where the medical facilities were and Emily had been there plenty of times for checkups on her shoulder. However, instead of turning right when the elevator dropped them off, the two turned left and Andrew, who now ran at a slight jog, pulled Emily towards a door fifty feet away. He let go of her arm and smiled one last time before he opened the door. When the door swung open Emily peeked in as the lights above flashed on. The room reminded her of Homer Simpson's work station at the Springfield power plant only there was a glass wall in front of the controls and the controls looked very real. To the right of the control panel was a door. Emily stepped in and walked up to the station and lightly ran her fingers over the buttons and switches, "What is this?"

Emily felt Andrew come right up behind her and placed an arm around her hips. He took his left hand and flicked on a big switch towards the top of the console and suddenly the room beyond the glass lit up. Emily pulled away from Andrew and leaned forward to look down. The room was massive and reminded her of her old high school's second gymnasium. Only this one did not have basketball hoops, wood floors, or bleachers. It was just a room with a floor, walls, and ceiling that were all metallic looking. Andrew placed a hand on her shoulder and said, "Welcome to the Danger Room_._ Okay," he pulled Emily back and started to flick various buttons and switches. Emily watched over his shoulder and noticed as he pulled up on a menu on one of the screens. On this screen he selected a program called _Andrew_8 _and then turned back to Emily, "Okay, when I tell you to I want you to turn this dial to two," he pointed at a dial on the console that pointed to numbers zero through five, "and then press this button," he pointed to a green square button. He smiled at Emily, patted her on the shoulder, and then let her go. She watched him open the door next to the console and leave. A moment later he appeared in the giant room below and Emily squeaked. She quickly grabbed what looked like the microphone, pressed the button, and shouted into it, "Andrew, somebody's in there!"

Andrew looked back up to her and smirked. "I know. He's supposed to be here, he's a hologram. See?" he reached out and slapped the face of a man standing before him. The man of very svelte build with buzz cut black hair, did nothing. He didn't flinch, didn't sway, nothing. Andrew looked back up to Emily, "Okay, turn it to two." Emily bit her lower lip and furrowed her brow with her hand over the dial. She carefully placed it and closed her eyes, "Em?"

"Yeah," Emily clenched her eyes shut even tighter, clicked the dial from zero to two, and pressed the button. Within moments she heard a man yell and the recognizable sound of flesh hitting flesh. Her eyes opened with great speed and she looked down into the room. Andrew was fighting the gruff man and looked like he had the upper hand. He hopped on his feet and kept his hands close up to his face. When the gruff man took a swing he would duck. When the gruff man had an opening, Andrew took it. Sometimes he kicked, sometimes he punched, but every time he made contact. Soon enough Emily was no longer cringed as the two battled but leaned in with open eyes and a slack jaw as she watched his every move. Finally, a few minutes later, when it seemed that Andrew was getting bored, he grabbed the guy by his hair and pulled his face down to meet with his knee.

The man fell back and landed on the floor sprawled out before the image of him cut out. A moment later the man was standing up again as lifeless as he was before Emily turned the dial up. Andrew wiped the sweat off his nose, unzipped his jacket, and threw it to the corner of the room to reveal a grey t-shirt with sweat at the neck. "Turn it up to five."

"Andrew…"

"Do it."

Emily threw her hands into the air and backed up to look at the controls, "Okay, okay. Five it is." She took the dial in her hand, cranked it to five, then hit the green button once more. She looked up and watched as Andrew started to fight once more. This time the hologram got in several hits just like Andrew. The brawled and went back and forth between various forms of martial arts and street fighting. Five minutes in Emily gasped when she saw Andrew get hit square on the jaw. He stumbled slightly, shook his head, then gave off a primitive yell as he bent low and ran at the hologram. He grabbed the man by his waist, kicked his feet out from underneath him, and collapsed on top of him. Then, with his right arm pinning the guy down across the chest, he grabbed the hologram by the hair and slammed his head into the floor. After three hits the hologram dissipated and Andrew fell to the rest of the way to the floor. The man with the black hair reappeared in the middle of the room and Andrew slowly stood up.

"The one thing," he gasped, "the one thing I want you to notice," another pause for another breath as he leaned forward with his hands on his knees, "is that I never, never, throw the first hit. This is defense only and that is the number one thing you need to learn. We aren't out to attack, we're out to protect." He straightened up, walked in front of the hologram, and waved his hand at Emily. "Okay, again."

"Andrew, I really don't…"

"Em!" he looked up at the control room as he continued to pant, "Emily, please."

Emily pouted and hit the green button a little harder than she intended. After that she paced the room with her arms crossed. She didn't watch the fight this time but stole glances every minute or so. Finally, when she was across the room, she heard a hard punch of flesh meeting flesh and the thunk of a body. She ran towards the glass and saw that this time it was Andrew on the ground and not the hologram, "Andrew!" Emily hit the green button once more to stop the program, which made the hologram disappear instantly, ran through the door and down the steps. She ran across the floor and fell to her knees a few feet away. She slid the rest of the way over to Andrew and put her hands on his cheeks. She hit them lightly, "Andrew, Andrew can you hear me? Andrew?" She felt for his pulse. There was one. To see if he was breathing she leaned in and placed her ear right next to his mouth. Then, without warning, Andrew came to life. He threw his arms around Emily, rolled her onto her back, leaned in, and kissed her on her lips. Emily fought back at first, slapping her hands on his sweaty shirt, before she slowly stopped and grabbed for his hips instead. When Andrew finished and pulled back Emily stuck out her tongue, wiped her mouth, and glared at Andrew. "You're covered in sweat."

Andrew sat back and Emily sat up, "Covered in sweat and you know you love it."

"I thought that thing had killed you."

"Not a chance, the program prevents anything like that from happening."

"And you?"

"What about me?"

"You were knocked out!"

"No I wasn't."

"But, I saw you on the floor…and you didn't respond…and…"

"All a part of my plan. Told you I'd get a kiss out of you eventually."

Emily stood up, dusted off her jeans, and then held a hand out for Andrew. He grabbed and as she pulled him up she said, "You stole it from me."

"Oh like you didn't enjoy it."

Emily, for the first time since Andrew began to fight the hologram, cracked a small smile. "Maybe just a little," she said as she grabbed his jacket. She walked back over to him and he instantly threw his arm around her shoulders.

"So, what did you think?"

Emily shrugged with both shoulders though she used her right one more out of habit, "Is this where everybody goes once they learn the basics about their powers?"

The two headed up the stairs, Andrew first as Emily watched him with one hand lightly touching his back. When they got back into the control room Andrew grabbed a sports drink from the fridge in there then nodded, "Eventually," he took a swig followed by a deep breath.

Emily looked at the room longingly, "I bet a person could learn a lot in there."

"Like how to fight and how to use their invisibility to their advantage. Like tomorrow?"

Emily turned to face Andrew and he winked back at her. "You mean?"

Andrew nodded, "I don't see why not. I'm sure the professor will agree. As a matter of fact he'll probably watch your first session." Andrew walked over to Emily and put an arm around her hips. "You'll do fine."

The two began to walk out of the room and turned off the lights on their way out. As they walked down the hall Emily swung Andrew's jacket while he drank his sports drink. When they got to the elevator Emily hit the button to summon it and turned to face Andrew, "Will you be there?"

"Of course. But I won't be down there with you."

"Why not?"

"It might be better for you to learn how to use your powers more before I get involved. Just to get them stronger since I can, well, you know."

Emily nodded and stepped into the elevator, "Hey Andrew?"

"Yeah?" Andrew quickly held out a hand to prevent the elevator from closing as he took another drink.

"Next time you kiss me, try not to do it covered in sweat?"

"Okay," Andrew said as he finished off his sports drink.

"Oh, and Andrew?"

"Yeah?" Emily quickly hit the button to close the elevator doors.

Andrew jerked his hand away, "Hey!"

"This is for making me think you were dead!" Emily shouted just before the doors shut. Once they did and she could feel the elevator rising she leaned back against the wall, smiled to herself, and held Andrew's sweater closer.

***

Emily carefully slipped into a dark room, lit only by moonlight, filled with boxes and furniture covered in sheets. She surveyed the room, ignoring the now familiar tingling feeling, and quickly found a cherry wardrobe on the opposite end. Precariously walking across the creaky floor boards, making sure to step in the middle of each board where they would make less noise, she got to the giant piece of furniture. She peeled the door open, crawled in, knelt and shut the door just as a man in busted into the room with a gun. Emily watched him through the crack between the doors with a held breath. "Please, go to another room," she whispered. The man walked in a few steps, looked around the boxes, and then lowered his gun. He sighed and turned for the door when he paused and looked at the floor. "Oh no," Emily whispered. She looked at the floor too and noticed she had left foot prints in the dust. Just as her stomach plummeted and the branches from outside hit the pane of the glass window. The man started to walk towards her and as he got closer Emily noticed the tingling feeling had started to melt away. "No, Andrew. Go away. Go—"

The wardrobe door was flung open, the man with the gun sneered, raised it to Emily's face, and pulled the trigger. Just as the bang left the weapon everything disappeared and Emily fell onto her bottom. Andrew walked over to her with his arms crossed. Emily looked up and stared at him, waiting for him to say something, "What happened?"

"I got caught."

"I can see that. Why did you get caught?"

"You know damn well why…"

"Why," Andrew interrupted, "did you get caught?"

Emily sighed and ran a hand through her short pixie style haircut, "Because I left a trail," she looked up to see Andrew had held out hand. She took it and stood up.

"And what do I keep telling you?"

"Just because I'm invisible doesn't mean my effects are."

"Exactly," Andrew patted her on the back and then looked up to the kid in the control room. It was a boy about thirteen years old with brown hair. He was new to the mansion and he could run fast. Really fast. Andrew signaled at him and suddenly the hall outside the room Emily ran into reappeared. Andrew turned to Emily, "Why did you stop using your power?"

"Because you came near me," Emily accused. Andrew had entered into the Danger Room in observer mode which meant he could walk through anything, not have any effect on the surroundings, and just watch.

Andrew shook his head. "No excuse. Unless I am within reaching distance of you, you should stay invisible."

Emily looked at the ground and pouted, "Well it's not like I'm that good yet. I've only been at this for two months and only trying to deal with you for a week."

Andrew stepped in front of Emily and placed both hands on her shoulders, "And that is why we are practicing. Now, one more question. Why haven't you gone after the guy?"

Emily looked Andrew in the eyes and held her hand out at the frozen hologram man behind her, "Because you said that we never attack. That we just defend. As a matter of fact that was my first lesson from you."

Andrew patted her shoulders once more then let go. "Em, he attacked you the moment he pulled the gun on you so defend yourself. Remember, your objective is to get out of the house. When you're at least fifty feet away from any pursuers the program will stop and you will have obtained your objective."

Emily held a hand out to Andrew, "Yeah, yeah, I got it." Andrew nodded, walked a few feet away and nodded at the boy in the control room. Emily went invisible, tingling feeling following, naturally, and the game began once more.

The man with the gun came to life and Emily started to creep away slowly once more. Again she ducked into the room with the boxes and furniture under sheets. She looked around quickly to try and find a solution before her pursuer followed. Just as he began started to edge into the room it came to Emily. She ripped a sheet off a loveseat and turned it invisible. It always amazed Emily when she turned something invisible with herself. The object, unlike her, would glow slightly. She figured this was the way her mutation let her know something was invisible since she couldn't feel the sheet tingle for itself. Emily snapped out of her train of thought and focused on the room once more. The man with the gun was a few feet ahead of her with his back to her. She inched closer as quietly as she could when she started to feel the tingling leave her body. _ I. Don't. Think so._ She thought as she closed her eyes and regained power over her appearance. When she was sure she was invisible again she looked up, saw the man still had his back to her, and charged. She threw the sheet over him and jumped onto his back quickly turning visible. The sheet caught him just right so his arms were pinned to his body and, because it was no longer invisible, his vision was obstructed. He spun around madly and Emily held on tighter. Finally he tripped over a box that he couldn't see and fell flat on his face. Emily let go, turned invisible once more, ran to the window, and flung it open. Then she stepped aside and waited for the gunman to stand back up. When he did he turned around madly with his gun pointed at anything that may be Emily. After a minute he turned towards the window and growled. He rushed over, put his hands on the sill, and leaned out. Emily quietly but quickly came up from behind, grabbed him around the ankles, and flipped him out. The man screamed, dropped his gun, which fell to the ground below, and held onto the window sill for dear life. Remaining invisible, Emily dashed out of the room, down the steps, and out the front door across the lawn. As she ran the surroundings quickly dissipated.

She stuttered to a stop and caught her breath. As she stood hunched over she felt a hand touch her shoulder and the familiar feeling of invisibility vanish. She looked up to see Andrew standing next to her. "That, right there, is why I love you."

Emily smiled, stood up, and put her arms around Andrew's neck. He placed his hands on her hips. "I thought you loved me because I'm the only one who can tolerate you?"

Andrew shrugged, "That too," he leaned in and kissed Emily on the lips. She returned the kiss and they stood there locked together for several seconds.

Right when Emily was starting to enjoy the passion from Andrew as his tongue began to work its way into her mouth, a voice came across the intercom, "Get a room, you two!"

Emily pulled away and looked over her shoulder as Andrew looked up. The boy in the control room, with his nose wrinkled, was holding the microphone. Emily smiled, let go of Andrew, and walked away with his arm still around her hips. He raised his, hooked it around her shoulders, and whispered into her ear, "You'll always be my sleuth angel."


	4. Chapter Three: Good Deeds

**Chapter Three – Good Deeds**

Emily stood out on the veranda with her elbows propped up on the wooden rail. Inside, though the French doors, were streamers, abandoned plates of cake, and party hats. Emily sighed and looked up at the stars on the clear summer night. A breeze gently blew across her face and she closed her eyes and listened to the rustle of the leaves in the trees nearby. As she took in the sweet smell of the roses freshly bloomed a hand grabbed her shoulder. Emily smiled and opened her eyes, "Come to give the birthday girl her present?" she turned around and looked into Andrew's green eyes. Andrew smiled back at her and put his hands on her upper arms. He leaned in and the two touched foreheads. They stood there for a minute and looked into each other's eyes before Andrew tilted his head and kissed Emily. She felt as his supple lips brushed across hers and his tongue gently slipped into her mouth. She put her hands on his hips and he held the back of her neck and head. After a minute the two separated and Emily smiled at him without showing any teeth, "Am I going to get eighteen more of those?"

Andrew smiled and started to rock Emily on her feet, "Oh? You want one for every year you've been on this earth?"

"Well, I think it's only fair. I am nineteen after all."

Andrew turned Emily around, wrapped his bulky arms around her svelte frame, and the two looked out at the lawn. "Maybe later, when we can be a little more alone," Emily smirked and nestled back into Andrew some more. Last year when she turned eighteen and finished high school, a year after Andrew, the professor allowed them to move into the same room. Since then Emily had been training with her powers harder than before so that she could one day join an elite group that Andrew had just become a part of. A group of mutants from the school who went out and used their powers for good. A group called X-Men. Currently the group only consisted of Storm, Jean, Scott, and more recently, Andrew for field work with Xavier, who stayed at the mansion most times, being the brains of the operation. Emily had also recruited Andrew's help in training her and, with the way he always pushed her to do better, she had a feeling that he wanted her to join too.

The two stood out and admired the stars for nearly ten minutes when Andrew looked at his watch and let go of Emily. "What is it?" she asked him.

"You know, it's only eight-thirty and we haven't left the mansion in weeks. How about a little trip somewhere?"

"Are you sure Professor Xavier would approve?"

Andrew tilted his head to the side and deadpanned, "Emily, I was thinking we'd just go into town for a small trip. Maybe pick up a hot dog from the corner store. It's not like we're going to Vegas. Besides, we're not kids anymore, we can go out for a stroll if we like," he grabbed Emily by the wrist and lead her towards the garage. Emily didn't fight him and, when he grabbed the keys for the Acura and unlocked the doors, Emily instantly got inside the car and buckled up. Within moments the two were off the mansion grounds headed into town, "So, are you feeling like hot dogs?"

Emily placed a hand on her stomach and groaned, "Wasn't the cake and ice cream enough?"

"I'm a growing boy."

"You're twenty. Any more growing and you'll be getting thicker, not taller."

Andrew let go of the steering wheel with his right hand and flexed his bicep, "What can I say? I think it's time to upgrade these guns."

Emily groaned again and looked out her passenger window, "I can't believe you just said that."

"Really, because I can."

"At least you're honest."

"Which is what you love about me. So, hotdogs? You don't have to get one if you don't want. Just enjoy the trip."

Emily looked back at Andrew and nodded, "Sure, where do you want to go?"

Andrew shrugged, "We'll just hit a convenience store on the edge of town."

Emily reached out and petted Andrew's arm. "Do you want me to become an X-Men?"

"I want you to do what you want to do. Not do something I'm doing just to please me or to be closer to me."

Emily pouted slightly, "But it would be a shame to not work on getting in now, not after all this training."

"Nonsense. You train to better yourself and even if you chose not to join at least you'll have a better grasp on your powers."

"But what more is there besides using them to fight? Whether it be for a cause or to save somebody?"

Andrew shrugged as the two pulled into a parking stall at the Big-K, "I dunno. That might be an answer you have to go look for," he leaned over and gave a kiss to Emily, "Do you want to know what would make me happy?"

"What?"

"For you to follow your heart no matter where it takes you," Emily rolled her eyes and Andrew grabbed her chin, "Hey, I know that sounds corney but I mean it. I want you to do what's right for you, not what you want to do just to make me happy."

"But making you happy is what's right for me. It's what makes me happy."

"Yeah, but there's a lot of ways to do that, Em. You don't have to join everything I join or fight my causes with me just to try and win my heart. You did that when you stepped into the dining room two and a half years ago," he took his hand and brushed some hairs out of Emily's face, "Just promise me you won't let me hold you back?"

Emily placed a hand on Andrew's and nodded, "I promise." He smiled at her, let her go, and got out of the car. Emily stepped out too and the two walked into the corner store hand in hand. When they got in Andrew headed straight for the hot dog machine and Emily wandered over to the slushie maker.

After serving herself a blue raspberry beverage she sipped it as she wandered the aisles. Occasionally she would grab an item off the shelf and look at it closer before putting it back. She hadn't been off the mansion grounds for a few weeks so she wanted to make this trip last. "Emily?" Emily looked up and saw Andrew two aisles over waving her to come. She placed a bag of chips back on the shelf and headed over. "You got what you want?" Emily nodded and Andrew pulled out his wallet. They started to walk towards the register when the glass doors at the front of the store swung open.

Two men, in blue jeans, sneakers, hoodies, and ski masks, barged in with guns in the air. Emily pulled the straw from her drink out of her mouth and Andrew quickly shoved his wallet away, "Give us the money!" one guy barked at the store clerk. The man shakily opened the register and began to drop money into the bag the first robber through at him.

The second robber came up to Emily and Andrew and, with his gun pointed in Emily's face, he yelled, "Give me your money or your bitch gets it!"

Andrew reached into his pocket and looked down at Emily with a very tiny smile on his face. Emily's wide eyes narrowed and her open mouth closed into a matching smile. When Andrew nodded she dashed off in between the aisles as the gun man began to fire at her. She heard the commotion of Andrew fighting the robber but she paid no attention to it. As soon as she was far enough away she turned herself invisible, grabbed a can of soup, and let that turn invisible too. She then stood up and ran over to where both robbers were now gaining up on Andrew. She took the can of soup and hit the first robber square on the back of his head. He yelped out in pain and spun around. Emily quickly stepped back and watched as he looked around for her to no avail. Then, when he turned back to the other robber and Andrew, who was getting the upper hand now that he wasn't outnumbered, Emily kicked him in the small of his back. The robber turned around once more and Emily ran off down an aisle. As she did she knocked off merchandise to keep the robber's attention. She got to the end she stopped by the beer coolers and waited for the man with the gun come to a halt. When he did she reappeared, "Hey! I'm right here!" The robber shot his gun but Emily quickly turned invisible just in time for him to shoot up the beer case. As she ducked in front of it she was quickly covered in a down pour of alcohol and broken glass, then she scooted away, stood up, and came behind the first robber. "Hey!" she yelled. He turned around and, before he could do anything, Emily punched him in the nose. He fell back and knocked the shelves loose of the shattered beer case. Emily kicked his gun out of his hand, grabbed it, and turned it invisible. The robber leaped up and looked around feverishly. She randomly shot a bullet just to his left and he turned that way. Then she shot another to his right and he cowered to his left.

After only mere seconds of this taunting the robber ran over to his buddy on the ground, picked him up, and dragged him off. Emily watched as the two ran off outside, got in their car, and sped off. The moment they were gone she reappeared and ran over to Andrew. He slowly got off the ground and looked bloodied up but he had nothing worse than minor scrapes and a possible broken rib. Emily threw her arms around his neck and squeezed him tight, "Thank god you're okay."

"Ahh."

Emily quickly let go and stepped back while keeping her hands on his arms, "I'm sorry."

Andrew smiled and rubbed Emily's back, "It's okay, my sleuth angel."

Emily smiled, walked to the store clerk, who was still behind the register, and placed the robber's gun on the counter, "Don't worry, sir, I'm sure the cops are on their way."

The clerk stared at her with wide eyes and mouth movements that mimicked a fish out of water. Finally he whispered one small, barely audible word, "Mutant."

"Excuse me?" Emily asked as she approached him. The clerk snatched the gun off the counter and pointed it at Emily's chest. She immediately threw her hands into the air but it was too late. The clerk cocked the gun and shot three times.

Emily went flying to the floor and landed with a hard thud. "God, not again," she cried to herself with her eyes clenched shut.

"Not again," Andrew responded calmly. Emily opened her eyes and saw Andrew above her with his hands on either side of her head as she lied on her back. She looked him in his eyes and then at the clerk who fruitlessly pulled the trigger of the gun. When no more bullets came out he slammed the gun on the counter and stared back at the two entangled on the floor. Emily looked away from him and back at Andrew whose arms suddenly gave out. When he collapsed Emily had the wind knocked out of her and she quickly rolled him off. She sat up and looked down at him as he began to cringe and gasp for air. Andrew had taken all the bullets for her; two to the stomach and one to the chest. She instantly put her hands to his chest wound and applied pressure, "You moron!" Emily yelled at the store clerk, "We were helping you! Who cares what we are? We saved your life!" The clerk looked at her with a stiff upper lip before he retreated to the back room without another word.

"Emily," Andrew whispered.

"Shh, don't try to talk." Emily put one of Andrew's arms around her shoulders, helped him up, and half dragged him out of the store. They got to the car and Emily carefully lowered Andrew into the passenger seat as she grabbed the car keys from him. She then ran to the other side, stuck the keys in the ignition, and sped off to the mansion. She easily went twenty miles over the speed limit but nothing would slow her down. Tears started to form and when she could feel them about to break over the top of her bottom eye lids Emily bit her lip and grabbed the steering wheel harder. Despite her best efforts the tears soon fell down her cheeks, off her chin, and onto her shirt. Emily constantly looked over at Andrew and reached out a few times and placed a hand on his arm or cheek. He hadn't stopped breathing, even though his breath was getting shallow, and he cringed every time they hit a bump in the road. Emily turned on the road that led to the mansion and accelerated more. They were a few miles away from safety when Andrew quietly spoke up, "Emily, stop."

"I can't, Andrew," Emily said as she wiped tears off her cheeks with her right hand and kept her left tightly on the steering wheel, "We're almost to the mansion, they can fix you up there."

"Emily…please."

Emily looked down at Andrew and the pit of her stomach dropped so far she thought it was going to hit the asphalt. His hands no longer covered his stomach wound, his face was pale, and even though he was looking in Emily's direction his eyes seemed to look past her and stare at nothing. She hit the brakes and pulled over on the now dirt road, "Andrew, please, let me get you back to the mansion."

Andrew shook his head. "I want you."

Emily placed a hand on his cheek and let more tears fall, "I'm right here, Andrew, and I'm not going to leave. I promise I'll stay right next to you no matter what."

Andrew closed his eyes and Emily stopped breathing until they opened again. "No. I don't want," he paused and took another shallow breath, "I don't want to die alone."

"You're not going to die alone because you're not going to die!" Emily unfastened her seatbelt, placed her left hand over the stomach wounds and her right on his chest wound.

Andrew cringed the moment she touched him but it was so little that to Emily it looked like a simple twitch in his face. He slowly raised his right hand to her face and made contact though his fingers remained curled in. Emily let go of his stomach wound and held his hand in hers. Andrew took his thumb and wiped away some of her tears before his arm went limp, "Something good's happened."

Emily scooted out of her seat and onto the center console. She removed her hand from Andrew's chest and pulled his upper body onto her lap in the cramped car. When she was situated she started to stroke his hair out of his face. "What's that?"

"I can't stop you anymore," Emily stopped holding back her tears and let them fall freely. With her right arm still supporting Andrew she took her left hand, placed it on his cheek, and leaned in for a kiss. It wasn't a hard active kiss like so many before. There was no heavy petting, no fast lip movements, and no attempts to sneak her tongue into his mouth. Emily simply embraced her companion as she closed her eyes and let her lips rest on his only slightly puckered. She could feel him kiss back and even though there was hardly any movement in his lips it felt just as passionate and long lasting as any of their other kisses.

As quickly as it began, it ended. Andrew's loose grip on Emily faltered, his neck went limp, and his lips parted slowly. Emily tilted his head towards hers without opening her eyes and rested her forehead on his, "Please, not yet," she whispered, "just give me one more minute." After she waited for a minute with no response Emily opened her eyes, kissed Andrew's forehead, and pulled him closer. She readjusted her arms to hold him tighter and started to sob into his shoulder. As she sobbed she began to rock his limp body and screamed muffled cries.

Eventually she took a deep, staggered breath and pulled back from their embrace. Emily put her hand on Andrew's chest, just to the left of the hole left behind by the bullet, and bit her lips. She looked up and blinked away as many tears as she could before she looked back at Andrew one last time. She gently kissed his soft cheeks, placed him back in the seat, and drove off to the mansion. Xavier was in the garage with Scott and Jean who stood by a car with the doors opened. Emily placed the car into park, got out, and stared at Xavier as Scott and Jean ran over to Andrew's body. She paid no attention to them as Jean discovered that he was dead and shook her head at Scott and Xavier. Emily stood there for another brief moment before she took her eyes off Xavier and walked past him. There was nothing to tell the man about what happened because Emily was sure he already knew.


	5. Chapter Four: Alliances

**Chapter Four – Alliances**

The first thing Emily refused to let go of was Andrew's pillow. When she cried herself to sleep, when she woke up and screamed, and when she just laid in bed and blankly stared out the window, she always clutched his pillow. The smell of his hair made her long for him even more and the more she wanted him the tighter she held on. But the smell didn't last. After three days of constantly being held the smell of Andrew faded away and was replaced by the scent of tears. Emily then moved on to the dresser. She opened his drawers, which were the bottom two, and would run her hands over his neatly folded clothes, a complete juxtaposition to the drawers just above. After only an hour of admiring the night shirts and socks Emily noticed the smell was growing fainter as well. The moment she realized this she slammed the drawer shut and refused to consider even cracking it open. Instead she would lie down next to the dresser, on his pillow, and stroke the cherry front.

Visitors would come, mostly Jean and Professor Xavier, and they would bring her lunch but she would never eat. Not in front of them. She waited until they left and then would eat alone with Andrew. But finally, on the fifth day, she left her post by the dresser. Emily shuffled to the bathroom and looked into the mirror. She saw her face was blotchy and red, her hair was a mess, and her nose looked like it had been rubbed raw from tissues. Emily looked away, sat down on the toilet lid, and blankly stared at the shower. She sighed, put the pillow on the counter next to her, and approached the shower. She stepped over the small lip at the bottom, shut the door, and turned on the faucets. The water was lukewarm but Emily made no effort to warm it up. She let it run over her face and then into her hair. It got her clothes that she changed into when she got back to the mansion soggy and heavy. After a minute Emily opened her eyes and lifted her head so that the water came straight down on top of her. She looked ahead at the shelf in front of her and stared at Andrew's body wash. It was some manly brand that had a faint scent. Emily sighed, took off her clothes, and reached out for the bottle as if her shower gel wasn't even there. She popped the lid opened and squeezed the bottle so the scented air came out and infiltrated her nose. She inhaled deeply. When no more air came out the blue gooey body wash started to ooze out and down the bottle onto Emily's hands. Emily tipped the jug over, squirted a hefty amount into her hands, and began to wash up.

Twenty minutes later Emily stepped out with Andrew's towel around her. She dried her hair, left the bathroom and got dressed. Once she had some fresh clothes on Emily looked up and saw Andrew's duffle bag, the one that held all his possessions when he came to the mansion, on the top shelf. She stiffened her lips, furrowed her brow, and remembered the promise she made to him earlier that night. Without any more hesitation Emily snatched the bag, not caring what fell off the shelf with it, and tossed it onto the bed. She took two fast and big steps to the dresser and began to pull out underwear and socks from the top drawer. When she had tossed about half of what was in there onto the bed she moved to the drawer below. In there were some silky night shirts and girly pyjamas. Emily wrinkled her nose, closed the drawer, and moved on to the next one. From that drawer she grabbed some of Andrew's night shirts and pyjama bottoms and tossed those onto the bed as well. She walked over to the bed and began to shove the clothes to the bottom of the duffle when there was a knock at the door. Emily paused briefly and stared at the door. After a minute she continued to shove the clothes into the bag and grunted, "Come in."

Xavier opened the door and entered. He stopped in front of Emily across the bed from her, "Emily…"

Emily looked up at Xavier and pointed at him while she held the last of the clothes from the drawer, "Don't try to talk me out of this, Xavier." She shoved the last items into the bag and then walked over to the closet.

"Emily, please just listen," Emily said nothing but started to grab clothes from the closet. "Running away isn't going to make you feel better, it's only going to numb the pain for a few days and then you'll be back where you began."

"At least I can be back where I began away from here," Emily said as she carried three pairs of jeans over to the duffle and shoved them in with a few shirts.

"And what about your powers, do you plan on leaving them here as well and never using them again?"

Emily paused and stared at the wall while she pursed her lips. "No," Emily said bluntly as she quickly continued to throw items into her bag, "even though they did get him killed." By now she started to toss in random items like hair-bands and toiletries. She then walked over to a lock box the two had and took all the money out of there. She placed half of it in her pockets and the other half was shoved down towards the bottom of the duffle.

"Emily, your powers didn't get Andrew killed."

"Don't do that, Xavier!" she shouted, "Don't tell me that the fact I'm a mutant had nothing to do with this. If I hadn't used my powers that clerk would've just thought we were two humans good at self defense and Andrew would still be here." Emily put her hands on the duffle, looked at the bed, and shook her head, "Instead I used my abilities to help somebody and now the man I love is dead," she looked up at Xavier and glared.

"Who knows what would've happened if you hadn't used your powers. Maybe you still would've been successful or all of you could've ended up dead. We'll never know." Xavier had a neutral face and spoke without raising his voice, "This is what we do, Emily. We save those who fear us knowing that we may not make it home at the end of the day."

Emily shook her head and synched the duffle shut, "No, that's what you do, Xavier. That's what the X-men do, not me," she threw the duffle over her shoulder, walked over to the door and faced Xavier, "It's time I keep my promise. Thank you, Xavier, for taking me in, but I think it's time I go."

"Is this what you truly want?" Emily nodded, "Then I won't stop you." Emily looked at Xavier carefully before she nodded slowly and left the room.

Half way down the hall she turned invisible and headed straight for the garage. When she opened the door she saw Scott who was busy working on the car that Emily and Andrew were in a few days ago. He looked up at the door, "Emily?" Emily said nothing. She walked over to the wall with the key to all the vehicles slowly and carefully placed her hand on a set of them. When she touched them she turned them invisible and carefully lifted them off the hook. Despite her best efforts they still made some noise. Scott looked over at the wall and Emily held perfectly still. "Go ahead," he said in a soft tone. Emily watched as Scott looked at the rag in his hands, walked back to the car, and continued whatever it was he was doing without another word.

Emily snapped out of stealth mode and walked over to the motorcycle that she lifted the keys for. She started it up, climbed on top, and let herself turn visible. She looked at the car Scott was in and, after a minute, turned off the bike. "Thanks, Scott," she said.

Scott got out of the car and looked at her over the top, "The professor will be keeping an eye on you. If you do anything threatening to anybody, anybody at all, I won't hesitate to drag you back here kicking and screaming," then, without another word, he returned to the inside of the car.

Emily looked down at the bike and tightened her hands on the handle bars. She hadn't thought specifically about hurting anybody, not even that bastard store clerk, but hearing Scott's words set it in stone. _Still,_ she thought, _there's no point in wasting my powers and not use them freely._ She reignited the bike, kicked out the kick stand, and sped off with her body and everything she touched invisible once more.

***

The first two weeks were the hardest. Emily had about three-hundred dollars on her in cold hard cash but she knew she couldn't blow it all on food and cheap motels in the first few weeks. Since it was summer she tried camping out at night but that proved to be problematic. She would turn herself invisible on a patch of grass next to a parking lot where her bike was and would drift off only to be woken by some police a few hours later. No matter how hard she tried her powers always went dormant once she fell asleep. That left her with no choice but to start sleeping on bike trails under bridges and anywhere else inconspicuous. Then, when the morning sun came up, she walked to wherever she parked her bike, got on, and drove around most of the day. She wasn't sure how far she was from the mansion but she figured it had to be at least eighty miles away according to the odometer. Gas was the most expensive thing to buy so when Emily was satisfied with the distance she put between herself and the mansion she started parking her bike most of the day and walked around. Food was the second most expensive thing to buy. Emily often only bought one meal during and snacked on whatever she could spare change for the rest of the day.

Finally, on the first day of week three, she couldn't take the uncertainty of a warm meal or a place to sleep anymore. She thought about going back to the mansion once or twice but the moment she remembered what Xavier said to her about saving those who fear them and the clerk's face after she and Andrew did just that and she shoved the idea to the back of her mind. Emily wandered the streets of whatever town she had found her way into last night and stopped by a newspaper machine. For fifty cents she could buy an issue and start looking in the classifieds. Emily sighed, reached deep in her pockets for the last of her quarters, shoved them into the dispenser, and grabbed a paper from the inside. With a sigh she walked to a nearby bench, sat down, and started to circle possible jobs with her nearly dried out pen.

Ten minutes into her search, which so happened to be turning up practically nothing, a tall man with grey hair and a strong face walked over to her. When he sat down Emily eyed him and scooted away slightly. The man laughed, "I'm not going to hurt you child," he said calmly.

"That's nice," Emily bit back.

The man was quiet for a few minutes before he started to look over her shoulder. The more he leaned in the more Emily hunched over the paper, "What do you think you're doing?"

Emily roughly shook a crease out of the paper and flipped it over to the next page, "I think I'm doing something that doesn't concern you."

The grey haired man smiled. "Perhaps I should rephrase that. What do you think you're doing, looking for a job, when you can just steal whatever you want?"

Emily looked away from her papers, let her shoulders sag, and turned to the man, "If I just steal something I would get caught, now wouldn't I?"

The man inched closer to Emily, and much to her dismay she was already on the very end of the bench, leaned in sideways towards her, and quietly whispered, "Not if you use your powers."

Emily's eyes went wide and she shot out of her seat, "Who are you?"

The man placed his hands on his knees and looked at the people on the street behind her, "Look at them," he said as he pointed to the pedestrians and people in their cars and Emily looked over her shoulder at them, "going about their business oblivious to the fact that what they fear most stands right here on this sidewalk. But if they knew," he laughed quietly and looked back at Emily who turned to face him, "you and I would probably be tossed into some camp or high tech facility, locked away with little hope of ever seeing daytime again. All because they dread what we could do to them with all our power."

"Who are you?" Emily asked again but this time her voice was even and her brow was furrowed in thought.

The man stood up and walked over to Emily, "I'm one of your brothers."

Emily shook her head, "No. My brother thinks I died two and a half years ago and is busy deployed somewhere in Afghanistan."

The man smiled once more and walked off. Emily watched him pass the newspaper machine she bought from just a few minutes earlier. As he did he gave a slight wave of his hand and the metal door that was on the casing where the money was popped open. Emily's mouth fell open and, instead of running over and taking all the cash inside, she grabbed her duffle, ran down the street, hopped on her bike, and turned it and herself invisible. She rode up the street until she was twenty feet behind the man. The man stopped on the corner of the block and got into a black SUV. When he got in he looked out the window, though he never made eye contact with Emily, at her general direction and gave a small nod. Emily looked once more at the open newsstand behind her before she looked forward and watched the car drive off.

She let her and the bike turn visible and followed them for nearly an hour and a half. They drove into the mountains and the further they went the denser the trees got. Emily went into a cold sweat when she thought that maybe she was being led back to the mansion but, after she looked closer at her surroundings and realized that this man talked with too much understanding of what she felt to be Xavier, she calmed down. Finally, when her bike was nearly out of gas, they seemed to approach a much hidden abode in the mountains. Emily got off her bike, ran a hand through her still short but no longer pixie-styled hair, and walked up to the man from the bench. "Where are we?"

"We are at the home of the Brotherhood. If you give Toad here your keys he'll park your bike somewhere hidden," Emily looked behind herself and saw a green man hunched over with warts staring at her. She tried to not look disgusted but she couldn't help being shocked when he took the keys from her hand and used the SUV as a leap pad to jump onto her bike. "No surprise how he got his name."

The man waved his hand and the big metal door in the rocky side of the mountain slid open. Emily quickly followed him in as she readjusted her duffle. "How many mutants are there here?"

"With you there are now five."

"Magneto," Emily looked to her right as a blue woman with scaly skin and red hair walked over to them.

"Mystique, how lovely to see you again my dear."

Mystique walked over to Emily and Emily quickly turned invisible before the woman could look her over, "Is this the girl?" she asked.

Magneto nodded and Emily quickly spoke up though she remained invisible. "Is this the girl? What's that's supposed to mean?"

"We've been watching you," Mystique said without hesitation, "ever since the slaughter at the corner store."

Emily melted back into visibility and looked at Magneto, "How did you…?"

"The nightly news, dear," he said as he placed a hand on her shoulder and began to guide her away. Mystique fell into step behind them, "They've been playing the footage over and over again of you dear friend getting attacked by that horrendous human."

Emily looked to the floor and shoved her hands in her pockets as Magneto led them into a room with a desk, one of those ball contraptions that demonstrated physics, and a window with bars. Emily stopped just short of the desk and Magneto took a seat in the chair behind it, "Have they been playing it a lot?"

Magneto sighed, "Every night. And when they interviewed the store clerk he claimed you two were the ones trying to rob him and he was merely protecting his establishment."

Emily looked up and fought back tears, "But we didn't! Didn't the cops and the news stations see the footage? We fought off the real robbers!"

"She has a lot to learn," Mystique said as she walked over to Magneto and stood behind him.

"That she does," Magneto agreed, "Humans would rather believe that a mutant caused harm and devastation than look at the truth. It's in their hypocritical nature and because they fear and loathe us they'd rather see us as the cause to all their problems than take the time to look at their own crimes."

Emily looked down at her hands and picked at her cuticles, "So Andrew's death?"

"Is nothing more than a rightful execution in their minds."

Emily nodded and wiped away the few tears she had let fall from her eyes. She looked at Mystique and nodded at her, "What can you do?"

Mystique looked at Magneto then back at Emily. In the blink of an eye her figure melted and she looked exactly like Emily. Every feature about her, the brown hair, the fair skin, the duffle bag and sweatshirt, which used to be Andrew's, that Emily wore, was there. Emily dropped her duffle and walked over to Mystique. "How do you do that?"

Mystique quickly melted back to her usual form and everything that was a resemblance of Emily was gone, "The same way you turn invisible," Magneto said as he got out of his chair. "You're with other mutants now. Mutants who won't force you to protect those spiteful humans like Xavier insisted you do."

Emily nodded and looked at Magneto, "Thank you," she said as she held out her hand, "My name is Emily."

Magneto looked at Emily's hand and didn't move to accept it, "Is that so?"

Emily pulled her head back and lowered her hand, "Yeah."

"You're not a human, Emily. You haven't been since the day you were born so there is no point in keeping a human name. What's your real name?"

Emily only had to think about it for a split second, "Sleuth," she declared, "My name is Sleuth."

"Well then, Sleuth," Magneto held out a hand and Sleuth shook it, "Welcome to the Brotherhood."


	6. Chapter Five: The Great Equalizer

**Chapter Five – The Great Equalizer**

Sleuth had no trouble fitting in with the rest of the Brotherhood. After only a week of being there she felt more at home than she did at the mansion and within a month she couldn't even remember who Emily was. Now, a year after she joined them, she couldn't remember life before the Brotherhood. She still kept her hair short but only to about her mid neck, not the short haircut she had when she first arrived.

But Emily could remember Andrew and Andrew's voice was in her head protesting her at every waking moment. When the five of them sat down for dinner and Magneto talked about plans to make the humans understand, Andrew said it was wrong. When Magneto said that humans needed to walk in their shoes, Andrew yelled about how disgusted he was. When Magneto announced that he had a plan to do just that, Andrew declared him a monster.

But, again, that was in Emily's mind and Sleuth was no longer that girl. If Emily ever started to make an appearance, if she ever suggested that perhaps they listened to Andrew's conscience that seemed to be etched into her memory, Sleuth sent them to the far regions of her mind and refused to listen. Soon after that dinner she started going out on missions with either Toad or another mutant named Sabertooth who, like Toad, was very animal like in appearance. The difference between him and Toad was that he looked more ferocious than reptilian. Mystique ran her own errands, free to get around and blend in with her surroundings. Sleuth did most of the actual stealing when she went out with Toad or Sabertooth and, if she needed their help with something, she just turned them invisible along with herself and whatever else it was she was stealing. Mostly they just gathered random metal pieces and parts that, when carefully placed together by Magneto's cunning mind, would come together to create the great equalizer. It would be a machine that would turn humans into mutants. Sleuth smiled every time Magneto talked about his plans and often asked him to explain them again just to hear him talk about a world where everybody was a mutant. After Magneto entertained her he would often follow up the entire conversation with one simple question, "What're you willing to give to prove your loyalty?"

"Anything," Sleuth said time and time again. When she said that simple word it rolled off her tongue without another thought as to what it meant. Andrew and Emily both screamed at her to not say it, to not declare something so bold, but Sleuth hardly heard them.

The day that she didn't hear them protest her declaration was the day that she was required to prove herself to Magneto. "Sleuth," Magneto said softly as he held out a hand for her. Sleuth got off the ledge she was sitting on, took his hand, and let him lead her to the room with the Great Equalizer, "I require something of you."

"Anything, Magneto," Sleuth said breathlessly.

"Remember when I asked you what you were willing to give?"

Sleuth laughed to herself, "How could I forget? You've asked me nearly every day for the past three months."

"And what did you tell me?" asked Magneto as they entered the chamber with his machine.

Sleuth let go of his hand and turned to face him. "I told you anything."

Magneto nodded, "It's time for you to pay up." He pointed into the chamber and Sleuth looked across the room. On the other side stood Sabertooth who had a man kneeling in front of him with a black bag over his head. Toad perched himself on a rock next to Sabertooth and likewise had a woman kneeling in front of him with a black bag over her head. Magneto nodded and the two removed the black bags.

Sleuth gasped and threw her hands to her mouth, "Mom? Dad?"

"What was that?" Magneto asked.

Sleuth turned around and looked at Magneto with wide eyes and an open mouth, "These are my parents."

"Like hell we are!" Sleuth's father yelled. He spat on the floor and, as Sleuth went running over, she saw that his face was bloodied up.

"Are you so sure about that, Sleuth?" Magneto asked, "It seems they don't consider you their daughter."

Sleuth stopped just feet before her parents and looked at them more carefully. Her father had a black eye and bloody lip but her mother was unharmed. Both had stiff lips and piercing eyes but, behind the cruel glares, Sleuth could see them trembling deep on the inside. "Dad," she whispered as she knelt in front of him. She reached out to touch his bloody lip but he jerked away.

"You're just that woman again," he mother argued as she looked at Sleuth from only the corner of her eye.

"No, she isn't," said Mystique. She strolled into the room and came to a stop just behind Magneto.

Sleuth jumped up and mimicked her parent's dagger eyes in a way that made it obvious, without any sort of doubt, that she was their daughter, "What's the meaning of this, Magneto?"

Magneto strolled over to the Great Equalizer and stepped onto the pad, "You don't expect me to use this on the rest of mankind without running a few tests firsts, do you?"

"Magneto!" Sleuth ran over to Magneto as he began to raise the platform. Mystique came up behind her and grabbed her by the wrists. She formed her hands into shackles that, though they weren't made of metal, were impossible to get out of. "Magneto let them go! Find somebody else to test this on!"

Magneto, now high up and in position, nodded at Sabertooth and Toad. Sabertooth dragged Sleuth's father over to a chair in the middle of the room and locked him in as Toad dragged her mother out of the room, "Robert!" she screamed but soon her cries faded away to silence.

Magneto looked at Mystique and, with a stiff and straight face, said, "Make sure she stays here for this."

"Dad!" Sleuth screamed out as she fought against Mystique's tight grip.

Sleuth's father slowly turned his head and looked at her. His upper lip was curled and his eyes were squinted in anger, "You're no daughter of mine."

A bright light flooded from the Great Equalizer and slowly poured down from the top of the machine like a thick fluid. Sleuth fell to her knees, with her arms still behind her back, and began to cry. She watched as her father took a deep breath and closed his eyes just before the light hit him. When it did he started to groan before he actually screamed through gritted teeth. Sleuth screamed with him. Soon thereafter he started to quiver and that was followed by bigger convulsions that shook the chair he was in. He opened his eyes but all Sleuth could see were the whites as the rest had rolled back into his head, "Dad, hold on!" she screamed. Her father then started bleeding from his nose and ears as his body went rigid. His pelvis lifted off the chair as his spine and legs stiffened but a moment later he collapsed back into the chair. The light that flooded the room started to retreat back to the machine from where it came and Sleuth was finally let go.

She ran over to her father as Sabertooth and Mystique went over to Magneto who stood on his own feet just barely. Sleuth kneeled in front of her father and saw the full horrors that the machine caused. Every orifice had a stream of blood coming out of it and his skin and clothes smoldered slowly. With glistening eyes Sleuth reached out and touched her father's cheek. His skin was hard and hot like an iron for clothes and the moment Sleuth made contact she withdrew her hand. On her father's flesh colored cheek were two red spots where her pointer and middle finger made contact. Sleuth looked at her fingers, which easily had second degree burns, and then back at her father. Robert's head fell to the side and the bleeding stopped. Sleuth pulled her sweatshirt over her hand and reached out, "I'm so sorry, dad," she said. When she touched her father's cheek again dust crumbled away and soon his whole body fell apart into a pile of ash.

Sleuth looked at the empty chair and let several tears fall down her cheeks as she silently wept. When she felt a hand on her shoulder she didn't even bother looking up, "It's better this way anyhow," Magneto told her. Without looking him in the eyes, Sleuth stood up and ran out of the room.

***

A few hours later Sleuth began to wander around to find the cell her mother was being kept in. When she did she walked up to the bars and looked in on her mom who sat on the floor and stared out the window, "Are you really my daughter?" she asked without looking away

Sleuth kept her hands on the bars, but slid down to her knees and knelt by her mother's cage, "Yes."

Her mother looked at her, "I heard the screams. Is your father…?"

Sleuth shook her head, "No, he died as soon as it was finished."

Sleuth's mom nodded and looked back out the window. The two sat in silence for several minutes and in that time Sleuth moved to the wall across from her mother's cell and sat propped up against it. Finally the older woman spoke, "We thought you were dead."

Sleuth nodded, "I chose that. I knew you wouldn't accept me once you knew what I was."

"And you've been here this whole time?"

Sleuth shook her head, "No. I actually started off at an institute of mutants who made it their goal to protect humans."

Her mother looked at her and made no effort to hide her tears, "Mutants don't care about protecting humans."

Sleuth laughed silently and shook her head, "No, these ones did. The lead mutant, Xavier, found me using his mind powers. I was hiding in an alley after the shooting completely invisible to everybody. You see, I couldn't control my powers that much at first so they kind of just…happened when I was scared." Sleuth's mother shook her head and Sleuth quickly crawled over, "No, they really did. Look," she let herself turn invisible and the all too familiar tingling feeling took over her body. After she knew she was fully invisible she reached out and held two bars in her hands. Sleuth's mother looked over and her angry face melted away to be replaced with a furrowed brow but an agape mouth. She crawled over and reached out to touch the bars. When she did she touched Sleuth's hand and quickly pulled away. Sleuth reappeared with the bars and fell back on her bottom. She crossed her legs and then pulled her knees up so that she could wrap her arms around them. "I stayed there for two and a half years until," she looked away and bit her lower lip, "until my boyfriend was killed." Sleuth quickly wiped away a stray tear.

"At the convenience store?" her mother asked.

Sleuth looked at her and asked, "How did you know?"

"Your father and I saw it on the news but we refused to believe it was your face that they were showing over and over again as you disappeared and reappeared in the middle of the robbery," her mother stopped kneeling in front of her and sat fully on her bottom with her legs crossed. With the two of them this close together sitting in nearly identical position any onlooker would think there was a mirror being pointed at one of them and the reflection was a younger or older likeness depending on how you looked at it. "Why didn't you tell us you were still alive?"

Sleuth's lip stiffened and her jaw clenched, "Would you have let me come home if you knew?"

Her mother, without hesitation, deadpanned, "No."

"Then you know why," her mother nodded and the two were left in silence once more, "Where's Peter?"

"He was sent on a year-long assignment to patrol the border between North and South Korea. Emily…"

"Sleuth."

"What?"

"Emily was my human name."

"Emily was the name your father and I gave you, after your grandmother. What's this nonsense of human names?"

Sleuth shook her head and waved her hand, "Never mind, what were you going to say?"

"I was going to ask you what happened at the corner store."

Sleuth took a deep breath, let go of her knees, and played with the hem of her pants. "Andrew and I went there for a little trip, just to get us off the mansion grounds. We hadn't been into town for several weeks so we decided to have a little fun. When we went in I got a slushie and he got a hotdog," Sleuth laughed as she never looked up from her pants, "Andrew could eat on command. His stomach was a bottomless pit and I often found excuses to give him food just to see if he would ever stop. What was amazing was that, no matter how much he ate or what it was, he was always rather fit. It came with the training we put ourselves through," Sleuth stopped laughing, took a deep breath, and continued, "anyhow, we got our treats and were getting ready to pay when a couple of robbers came in. Deciding we could take them on we used our abilities to scare the robbers off. The clerk found out what we were just by watching the fight and got scared. He took one of the robber's gun and aimed it at me. Just as he started shooting Andrew shoved me aside and took the full hit. We ran out of the store and I drove him home. When we were only a mile away I pulled over and he died in my arms," Sleuth shook the arms of her hoodie down so that she could use the material as tissues. She wiped both her eyes and looked at her mother, "He died on my nineteenth birthday."

Sleuth's mom nodded, "Last month your father and I had cake to celebrate your twentieth." Sleuth thought back to last month and remembered what she did on her birthday. She was on a reconnaissance mission, fueled by the anger of Andrew's death anniversary, with Toad to get more material for the machine that just killed her father. Sleuth cringed and looked away from her mom as she closed her eyes and tried to fight back the nausea in her stomach, "What was Andrew's power?"

Sleuth looked at her mother with a furrowed brown, "Why do you ask?"

Her mother shrugged, "Just curious I suppose."

Sleuth thought about it for a minute before she said, "He could make a mutant's powers dormant depending on their strength. The stronger they were with their own abilities the harder it was for him to make them powerless. Just before he died he could only make me normal if he was within reaching distance though he didn't have to actually touch me." Sleuth drew imaginary lines on the ground, "I suppose that's why I loved him so much. Of all the little nuances he had, like his blatant honesty and huge stomach, it was that that attracted me to him. The hope that maybe the longer I was with him the more he would rub off on me and the more human I would become. In the end I just grew a more immune to him." Sleuth laughed to herself, "I suppose he really did make me a stronger person."

Sleuth looked up and stared at her mother for a minute. Finally, her mother spoke, "Don't try to save me, I belong with your father. I'm not saying this because I think I'm a horrible person and deserve to die, I say this because I promised him on our wedding day to be with him until death do us part. I don't think I could keep living knowing he's dead at the hands of his own daughter."

Sleuth looked away and cringed, "I'm not the one who strapped him to that chair or used that machine on him."

"No, but you are one of them. Not just a mutant, a mutant hell bent on destroying this world. But," her mother paused, "I suppose you're right, you never really could hurt a fly."

"Mom?"

"You may be a speed demon when it comes to driving but you're not a killer," Sleuth's mom stood up and held onto the bars. Sleuth mimicked her every move and the two stood with their faces mere inches from each other, "When you died I was still your mother, but when you turned out to be alive and a mutant I, well," her mother paused, "I'm still a mother to that dead girl, but not to you. With that said I want you to pass on some last advice to Emily. Since they never found her body I assume you would know where she's buried," Sleuth quickly nodded and her mother reached through the bars. She pulled Sleuth in and placed a gentle kiss on her daughter's forehead, "Leave."

"How sweet," the two women snapped out of the moment and both stepped away from the bars. Magneto had joined them and looked at them with a small smile that easily held traces of disgust, "mother and daughter bonding. Well," he said as he walked in front of the cell and used his powers to open the bars. Sabertooth came in and grasped Sleuth's mother and she didn't even bother to fight back, "Are you ready to go? Maybe this time things will work and you'll be equal to that of me and my brotherhood." Sleuth snorted and Magneto shot her an irritated look, "Something amusing, Sleuth?"

"Yeah," Sleuth admitted, "You and your great equalizer. That device did create equality, that's for sure," Sleuth turned invisible and carefully sauntered away from Magneto having mastered silent stealth walking, "It put you on the same level as any other human who has ever tried to kill us," she taunted, "the moment you used it and killed my father you became the clerk with the gun. Killing without remorse simply because somebody was different. You're just another human only you can do fancy magic tricks," Sleuth looked at her mother one last time as the woman simply stared at the ground with an unsmiling face.

"Sleuth, your only options are to be with me or be with them, the human lovers, and if you chose them I will have no choice but to hunt you down and destroy you like I would anybody else who gets in my way," Magneto said through clenched teeth.

Sleuth smiled in satisfaction knowing she had struck a nerve, "I choose neither. I'm not going to fight to protect those who want me dead but I'm not going to stay here and become intolerant like them," she turned and walked away and, without stopping, she called over her shoulder, "And my name isn't Sleuth, its Emily."

She left the Brotherhood's hideout without being followed. She figured it was because Magneto knew it was fruitless to try and hunt down a mutant who was invisible to the naked eye, even with somebody who had animal like senses. That and he probably felt he had better things to do. When Emily got on her bike and turned it invisible she saw a great light appear from the roofless room that housed the Great Equalizer. Soon thereafter she heard her mother's screams but drowned them out with the roar of her motorcycle as she sped down the winding mountain road.


	7. Chapter Six: Connected

**Chapter Six – Connected**

"Can I get some more coffee?" Emily looked over her shoulder at a man who was sitting at a counter of a diner in a trucker hat wearing a flannel shirt, quilted vest, jeans, and work boots.

Emily tucked the pencil she was holding behind her right ear and shoved her pad of paper into her apron after she ripped off the paper she was writing on. "I'll go put in your orders right now," she said just before she left the booth filled with truckers. She walked behind the counter, clipped the paper on a spinning clipboard and rang the bell for the kitchen. After that she turned to the trucker at the counter, grabbed a pot of coffee off the hot plate, and began to refill his drink. "You just couldn't be polite enough to wait until I was done with their orders, now could you, Ed?"

Ed smiled as he leaned on his elbows and sipped his freshly topped off coffee, "What can I say, I just wanted you to come back here so I could look at your fine ass."

Emily curled her upper lip, took her towel and swatted Ed's arms. "Get your elbows off my counter," she snapped at the trucker.

Ed smiled, took his elbows off the counter, and laughed, "Well look at you? Only a week after your twenty-first birthday and you're already like every other woman."

"That's because you're like every other sleazebag trucker who passes through here, Ed," Emily said as she pulled her hair band out and redid her ponytail. She then quickly held up a hand to the truckers in the booth that just had their orders taken, "No offense to the non-sleazebag lot of you," she then grabbed a stack of empty crates and went out to back door to drop them off by the dumpster.

When she stepped out the sweet smell of the June night hit her as a breeze crossed her face. She paused on the back stoop, closed her eyes, and took in the smell. When she did, like every other summer night that she did this, she could clearly remember back to her nineteenth birthday. Standing on the veranda, being held on to by the love of her life, kissing his soft yet strong lips; it all came back to her in a flood. The first few times she did this she was brought to tears and couldn't come in for a few minutes. When Marvin, the diner owner, asked her why she was crying she replied honestly and said that summer nights always brought back wonderful memories. But now she didn't cry. Now she just smiled and thought wistfully that if Andrew were there they really could be sharing that kiss again.

The summer nights weren't that hot in Laughlin City. Neither were the summer days. It was a nice little trucker town near the Canadian-American border that got little attention. The most exciting thing was the nightly cage fights at the bar across the street. Last week it was discovered that there was a mutant fighting over there under the codename Wolverine. The guy was quiet and kept to himself but he did occasionally come to the diner for a meal or two. Emily remembered how his leaving was the talk of the town for two days and for those two days she itched horribly to just scream that she was a mutant too. She never did though, she didn't want to be castigated like him. This place was as under the radar as places could get and that was something she wasn't willing to give up.

Emily dumped the crates by the dumpster and began to walk back into the diner when she heard a short but loud scream. She looked over her shoulder and when she saw the coast was clear she turned invisible and followed the sound of small metal trashcans being knocked around. When she rounded the corner she saw a woman being pushed around by a big burly man, "You'll take what I give you and you won't say nothing about it, you hear?" the guy said as he shoved the woman down to the ground.

The woman, who had honey colored hair, rolled over onto her back, propped herself up on her hands, and tried to scoot away. "Help!" she screamed but before her voice could carry the man jumped her and placed a hand over her mouth. Emily watched as he put his hand down to his pants and started to unzip his own jeans before moving onto the woman's.

Emily turned away and quickly looked for something heavy and hard. She found it in the form of a brick by the back of the diner. She quickly grabbed it, turned it invisible, and ran across the alley. When she reached the man, who started to slide his hand up the honey haired woman's shirt, she whacked him hard on the back of the head. He yelped out in pain and instantly let go of the woman as he threw his head back and clutched it. He stood up, staggered away, and started to look around for the culprit who attacked him. Emily watched the woman stand up, run, and hide behind a dumpster. When she was sure the woman was safe she turned back to the attacker and slowly walked up to him. She took a deep breath when she was about five feet away, cocked her arm with the brick back, and yelled, "Hey!"

The man turned around and Emily flung the brick at him. She watched as the brick stopped its familiar glow the moment it left her hand, the shocked look on the guy's face, and the contact it made. The man was hit squarely in the forehead and was knocked out cold in an instant. When he fell to the ground Emily ran over to the woman and reappeared. "Are you okay?"

"You…you weren't there… you were…" she said as she cowered against the wall and her voice shook.

"Invisible."

"Invisible. Does that mean you're a…"

"A mutant, yes. Do me a favor and try not to hold it against me," Emily said as she reached down and helped the woman up. The woman quickly straightened her hair, zipped up her pants, and wiped her tear covered cheeks. "Come on, I work at the diner just over there. We can call the cops and get you something to eat free of charge."

As she was leading the woman to the back door Marvin came running out and looked at Emily, "I heard the commotion, what happened?"

Emily jerked her head over her shoulder at the unconscious man behind them. "He attacked this woman. I'm taking her in to call the cops and get her something to drink, maybe eat. Can you make sure he doesn't get away until the cops get here?"

Marvin nodded and ran off the back stoop. Emily then led the lady up, through the kitchen and into the diner. Once she was situated and Emily had her drink order she called the cops and told the cook to make up a small plate of fries. The cops showed up pretty quickly and Emily let them talk to the woman alone. She only came by to drop off the woman's water and fries before she went back to the counter. Another officer took her statement, which she signed, and then left for the station. When the first officer was done he asked the woman if she needed a ride somewhere or if she needed to go to the hospital. The woman looked at Emily and Emily stepped forward, "Officer, how about we let this lady finish her fries and then I'll take her wherever she needs to go when she's done?"

The officer thought it over for a minute before he nodded and left the diner as well. Marvin shut the door after him and took some empty plates back to the kitchen as Emily stood in front of the lady with her arms crossed. She waited until he was out of hearing range before she sat down in the booth seat opposite of the woman and sighed. "I'm Emily," she said as she held out her hand.

The woman shook it with practically no grip at all. "I'm Angela," she said shakily.

"Well, Angela, we need to have a little talk about what you saw. First off, what did you tell the officers?"

Angela opened and shut her mouth a few times before she finally said, "Nothing. I told them that after the guy got off me and hid behind the dumpster I didn't see a thing."

Emily leaned back in the booth and took a deep breath, "Well, at least you didn't lie."

Marvin came over and took the half eaten fries. Emily looked at him with a furrowed brow and he looked at her quizzically. Emily watched him shrug it off and after he left she looked back at the Angela and leaned in on the table, "You see Marvin over there?" she asked as she pointed to him before he disappeared into the kitchen, "He doesn't even know that I'm a mutant."

"Why not?"

"I'm talking," Emily spat back. Angela stiffened for a moment before she loosened up and nodded. "Now, should anybody find out I'm going to blame you and squarely you."

Angela took a shaky breath and played with her glass. "You're not going to hurt me, are you?"

"No," Emily deadpanned, "but I won't exactly be happy with you either. Listen, I'm not going to go into the details about how I got here, I'm just going to ask that, to repay me for what I did, you don't tell a soul I'm a mutant," Angela nodded and Emily reached out and patted her arm. "Where do you live?"

"New York City."

Emily cringed, "What are you doing so far away from New York?"

"I came up here for some hiking. This area is really pretty and all."

"Well, do you need to go to the hospital?"

Angela shook her head, "No, I just want to go to my boyfriend's place."

"And where does he live?"

"About thirty minutes outside New York city. I drove here, I can drive home."

Emily sighed and got out of the booth followed by Angela. "Alright, but I'm tailing you to make sure you get there safe." Angela nodded, grabbed her purse, and headed out the door.

Emily quickly followed after she yelled goodnight to Marvin. She took off her apron, got in her small second hand sedan, and followed Angela on the two hour trip all the way back to her boyfriend's place. When she got there she parked and walked Emily inside and up to his apartment. She knocked on the door for her and the door instantly came open. Shoved her hands in her pockets and watched as Angela ran into his arms and embraced him. After a minute Emily pulled her hand out and jerked her thumb over her shoulder, "I'm gonna go."

Angela's boyfriend slowly let go of Angela and looked at Emily, "Nonsense. You're coming in, having a drink, and then going to sleep on my couch. It's nearly midnight and you need a place to stay for the night."

"That's okay, really. I won't mind the drive back."

"Emily," Angela said as she turned around and held a hand out, "Please. I already told Marcus what you did for me, can you at least let us repay you with a drink before you leave."

Emily gave Angela a pokerfaced look, "I already told you how you could repay me."

"Well then we really owe this too you," Marcus said, "Because she already broke her word and told me what you are when she called." Emily's mouth fell open and her brow furrowed as she balled up her fists. She was just about to turn invisible and run off when Marcus grabbed her arm, "Now come inside before I have to drag you in."

Emily looked down at his hand and started to turn her arm and his invisible. He quickly let go and shook it out and Emily smiled. She was sure he just got the tingling feeling which was always a shock to anybody the first time they felt it. She then looked them both in the eyes, sighed, and said, "Fine," as she brushed past them and into the apartment.

Emily and Angela sat down at the table while Marcus brewed them all some tea. Emily glared at Angela the whole time and Angela began to fidget. Right when Emily was sure Angela was going to leave the table Marcus came over with the kettle. He sat down and the two looked at Emily cautiously. "So, Emily, how did you find out…" Marcus began.

"That's for me to know and you to find out."

Marcus and Angela shared a look as Angela took her spoon and stirred the creamer in her tea. "You know, Marcus and I are mutant supporters."

"There's no such thing," Emily said in a short tone, "not unless you're a mutant."

"That's not true," Marcus said as he drank his tea, "Some of us mere mortals…"

"I'm not immortal," Emily snapped in a quiet voice as she glared at Marcus.

Marcus took a breath and continued, "As I was saying, some of us humans feel for you guys. You didn't choose to be what you are and for the rest of the world to throw you aside like some kind of cancer, it's not right," he said as he took another sip of his tea.

"We're active mutant supporters. We go to rallies with mutants who aren't afraid of exposure and…" Emily stopped paying attention to Angela and looked past her at the television.

A newscast was going on about how a mutant attacked a train earlier that evening and kidnapped a young girl. The mutant was described to be an older man and wore a helmet with a cape. His abilities appeared to be control over metal and people were strongly urged to call authorities if they saw him and, by no means, were they to approach him. Emily shot out of her seat and whispered, "Ellis Island."

"Excuse me?" Marcus asked.

Emily turned back to her seat, grabbed her purse, and headed out the door, "Tea was nice and all but I'm afraid I got to dash," she put her hand on the door knob and turned back to the two humans, "I hope you feel better," she mumbled to Angela before she slammed the door shut and ran down the hall. She knew exactly what Magneto was up too because she listened to him tell her the plans so many times before and, while she wasn't about to get into a fight with him, she had to see this happen. It nearly killed him the first time when he tested the machine on her father, there was no way he would just sacrifice himself for the greater cause. He was to self absorbed to do so. As Emily got in her car and sped off to a park just across the river from Ellis Island, one she knew she could watch him from, she played with the idea that maybe the girl he kidnapped had something to do with it but what that was Emily wasn't sure.

Emily got to the park half an hour later and as she stepped out of her car she witnessed the torch in the Statue of Liberty's hand blow apart. From it a brilliant white light started to flood out of the top and down the statue in that all too familiar and all too sickening way. Emily shut her car door and walked to the edge of the vantage point. She put her hands on the railing and stood there with her mouth open. Unable to do anything she merely stood there and prayed that something would stop Magneto before he killed millions of people.

The glowing light started to drift across the river closer and closer to Emily. She started taking shallow breaths and whispered, "Andrew, if you're so sure of your X-Men where are they?" The light got closer and closer to where she stood and eventually she had to lean over the rail to see the edge of it. When it hit the side of the cliff it started to work its way up Emily turned her head to the sky and closed her eyes. Even with her eyes closed, though, she could still see the brilliant light. "Andrew," she whispered.

Then the light was gone. Emily opened her eyes and looked down to see it quickly dissipate into nothing. She smiled and laughed half heartedly as she leaned in on the rail. She let her neck go loose and looked at the ground for a minute. After her heart caught up with her she let go of the rail, headed back to her car, and waited on the hood. Her hands were behind her head and her right leg was propped up on her left at the ankle. She waited because she knew that, if Andrew were still alive, he'd be with the X-Men right now and the possible chance that she might catch a glimpse of them made her feel closer to Andrew now than any other time since he had died. So she patiently waited and, for her efforts, she was rewarded.

A fog settled in and covered everything within a three mile radius. Emily sat up on her car and squinted hard hoping to see something past this weather that was surely created by Storm. As her eyes scanned the night sky she suddenly saw a couple of flashing lights that just didn't look right for it to be a normal airplane. Emily smiled, leaned back on her car, and waited for the fog to settle. When it did she got in her car and drove back to Laughlin City with an odd smile on her face the whole way.


	8. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Angela sat at the kitchen table stirring her third cup of tea. She looked up at Emily, who stood by the living room window and rested her right arm on the frame, and carefully thought of her next words. When she had them she stood up, walked over to Emily, and admired the morning sun with her. "So, that Ellis Island incident from two months ago…"

"Yeah?" Emily asked softly.

"That really was Magneto."

Emily looked away from the sunrise and at Angela. She removed her arm from the frame and leaned against the window, "It was."

"Do you know if he's still alive?"

Emily shrugged her shoulders, the right one slightly more than the left, and said, "I don't know. The news is claiming he's dead but I wouldn't be surprised if you humans have him locked up somewhere running experiments on him or something."

"Emily, we're not all like that. Some of us don't agree with the way you guys are treated. Some of us would protest in an instant if we knew that's what's happening to him."

Emily huffed and crossed her arms. "I wouldn't. That bastard deserves whatever they're giving to him."

Angela looked down for a minute before she looked at Emily and placed a hand on her shoulder, "I'm sorry about your folks."

Emily looked at Angela from the corner of her eyes, "Don't be," she said as she left the window, "They wouldn't want pity from a filthy mutant supporter like you."

Emily walked over to the kitchen table, grabbed her wallet, and shoved it in her pocket as she toyed with her keys. Angela turned away from the window and crossed her arms as she sipped her tea. After a minute of silence she broached a subject that she had been trying to figure how to dance around since Emily finished her story. "So, Andrew."

"What about him?"

"Do you think, if he were alive, he would be an X-Man?"

Emily, who didn't once take her eyes off her keys, said without hesitation, "Of course."

"Would that mean you'd be here, right now, in my apartment?"

Emily stopped tossing her keys around in her hands and looked at Angela. "I don't know. I would've joined to be with him but he probably would've talked some sense into me. I think he always knew, down in his heart, that it wasn't the life I wanted."

Angela nodded and set her tea down on the coffee table. "What are you going to do now?"

"Drive back up to Laughlin and go back to waitressing."

"Why?" Angela asked as she started to get pushier, "Emily, you can turn invisible for God's sake! Why don't you do more with your life? You could do anything!"

Emily glared at Angela. "The last person to tell me that killed my family."

Angela took a step back and looked at the floor. "I'm sorry, that's not what I meant."

"I know," Emily said as she walked away from the kitchen table. "I just," she sighed, "I just want a normal life and the only way it can ever be close to that is if I lie low in a small trucker stop town." Angela waited there for Emily to say something else but she didn't until Angela looked up and stared into her eyes, "I don't want the world, Angela. I've dreamed for so long about a place to hide and now I've got that. Now I can be free."

Emily walked over to the door and placed her hand on the handle when Angela spoke up, "How can you be free if you're hiding from both sides?"

Emily stopped with the door half open and looked back at Angela one last time, "Because I'm free enough to choose not to be with either side, and that's all that matters."

Angela watched as Emily lingered in the doorway for a minute longer before she turned invisible and the door appeared to shut on its own accord. When she left Angela grabbed her mug, walked over to the kitchen table, grabbed Emily's, and took them to the sink. She started to rinse them out when she paused with Emily's in her hand. She remembered how just a few hours earlier Emily made it disappear with ease and it made her shed a tear. She wondered if Emily, a girl who was pretty much living in hiding, really knew what freedom meant.

"Then again," Angela said, "maybe she knows better than all of us."


End file.
